Tape robots! I visited McDonnell-Douglas's computer center in St.
Louis MO around 1984? 1985? The St. Louis FidoNet crowd worked
there and had a computer club that met there. I remember it as
football-field sized room. They had at least one 1/2" tape open
reel library/robot that fed two drives, many you wouldn't want to
be inside that dimwitted thing while it was operating. It stuck
its arm outside to mount/dismount tape drives just outside the
room, like a captive lunatic. Great fun. I imagine it was Fun when
things went terribly wrong.